Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Animal Stories, in Crisis

Harvard Divinity School

This is the third event is a six-part series that took place live on Zoom discussing religion in times of earth crisis. Across the Indian Ocean world, communities have shared stories while encountering legacies of modern state-centrism, colonial capitalism, post-colonial environmental destruction, and religious reform. Muslim communities, among others, have shared stories of religious environments and animals that were inherited, transmitted, and reinterpreted in light of evolving ecological crises. These stories of multispecies ancestors and colonizers, Islamic conceptions of the environment, and narrative traditions of Islamic ecological care have confronted cycles of crises with visions of pasts and futures. In this session, Teren Sevea will discuss the question, “Can listening to these stories compel us to re-evaluate our academic approaches to religion and environments and the relationship of religious pasts and presents, in our time of crisis?” Speaker: Teren Sevea, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life Teren Sevea is a scholar of Islam and Muslim societies in South and Southeast Asia. Before joining HDS, he served as Assistant Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Sevea is the author of Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Currently, Sevea is coordinating the project “The Lighthouses of God: Mapping Sanctity Across the Indian Ocean,” which investigates the evolving landscapes of Indian Ocean Islam through photography, film and GIS technology. For more information on the full series, "Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: A Series of Public Online Conversations," see: https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-times-earth-crisis This event took place on February 12, 2024. For more information, generally: https://hds.harvard.edu A transcript is forthcoming.